by J. L. Hickey
“It’s down this road. We got a few miles to go still.” Aaron said. “Can I go in?”
“In?” Velasquez questioned?
“The house, to check on Jeanie? I have never set foot in it.”
“No,” Velasquez replied. She grabbed her phone from the dash, dialed.
“Who are you calling?” asked Aaron.
“A colleague,” Velasquez answered.
“Hello? Pike?” Velasquez spoke. “Listen, it’s probably nothing. I know Clent’s on duty tonight, but I got a call. I’m headed to Haylee’s old home on Orr Rd. Weird shit is going down. Thought I would see if you wanted to meet up ask some questions to the group?”
“The detective?” Aaron asked. “Tell him I said hi?”
“Are you serious?” Velasquez shot him a dirty look.
“Sorry,” Aaron muttered. “Shit, I’m trying not to go insane, excuse me.”
“—Sorry, yeah, I’m with the kid who was attacked by the suspect Gary Thom. I’m just picking up this woman named Jeanie. We’re going back to Haylee’s to figure this crazy shit out. If you give me twenty minutes, we should be back to Haylee’s. Trust me. You will want to meet us there.”
“Any word on the Gary dude who broke into my place? They catch that idiot?”
“—Yes, okay. See you soon.” Vanessa hung up. “No, he is still out there. We found the car he stole from Gerald Leveille, left on the side of the road near the state forest.”
“So…?” Aaron posed as a question.
“So what?” Velasquez asked, annoyed with Aaron already.
“What the fuck is going on? You heard that shit back there from Lydia. You didn’t hear the crazy shit I heard before that. I think I’m starting to go crazy.”
“Nonsense,” Velasquez answered. “We’re dealing with a guy who lost his grip on reality. That’s all. Something made him snap. He’s killed two people who took him in. For some reason, he tried to kill you. It seems like he has some sort of fascination with your friend if you ask me. She is the link between you and the other murders. This guy, he’s been lucky so far. His luck will run out.”
“You didn’t see what happened to Lydia. That was not normal. I’m telling you that shit was like something from a horror movie.”
“Could have been lots of things. Vomiting? Maybe food poison.”
“She was like, talking in tongues, saying weird stuff, mumbling, she didn’t even sound human,” Arron took off his flat-brimmed ball cap, and ran his hands through his sweaty hair.
“Look,” Velasquez spoke bluntly. “I don’t know what you want me to say. We aren’t fighting a demon, or someone possessed. We’re dealing with a potential serial copycat killer. If it is, and we don’t catch him, there are going to be more murders. I don’t want that. Do you?”
“No, of course not.”
“You’re only with me right now, to make sure I get to the right place, and because they insisted. You’re going to wait for me in my car; I will check on the woman. Hopefully, she is willing to come back to Haylee’s for a group discussion. We’ll have a conversation, all of us, including the Detective working on the case, you remember Pike, obviously.”
“Yeah, okay.” Aaron nodded. “Slow, down, though. Next house on the right. Where the vehicle is parked out in the driveway. Must be Jeanie’s.”
“Okay,” Velasquez pulls up alongside Jeanie’s vehicle. “Stay Put. I will be back in just a few minutes.” She exited the car, feeling for her side-hip belt holster and her firearm.
“So, just like? What? Wait here?” Aaron asked.
“That’s what I said,” she repeated, scoping out the home.
“What if you don’t come back?”
“That won’t happen, but if it does, call 9-1-1.”
“Yeah, okay,” Aaron nodded.
Velasquez made her way to the home, nearing three pm. The sun hung high in the sky—a warm day for a Michigan winter. The bountiful snow was finally melting a bit beneath the warmth of the rays. The home appeared empty. Velasquez scoped out the main window on the porch, looking into the living room.
All clear.
She checked the front door; the handle moved freely. It was unlocked. She knocked first. “Jeanie?” she yelled. “Jeanie, are you in there? My name is officer Vanessa Velasquez, your friend Lydia asked me to check up on you. Jeanie?” she yelled again.
Aaron sat anxiously in the running vehicle. He was sweating, tapping his thumb on his pant leg. He looked down at the dash; there in the cup holder was Vanessa’s phone. She forgot her phone.
Shit! Aaron wasn’t sure what to do. She hadn’t entered yet. He could hear her voice from the car, knocking loudly at the door. He stepped out, waving her phone. “Hey! Vanessa!”
“Get back into the car!” She yelled back.
“But!” Aaron waved the phone. That’s when he saw a skinny man darting from the back of the house. He ran towards the woods from the backside of the house. “Dude!” he yelled, pointing to the back.
“What?” Vanessa shook her head in anger. “Get back into the fucking car, Aaron!”
“A guy!” He yelled again, pointing like a mad man to the backyard.
“What?” Vanessa ran down the porch, swinging around the house towards the side where she parked her car. “You saw someone?”
“Dude was running into the woods!”
“Stay! Call 9-1-1 now!” Vanessa took off towards the woods. She saw briefly the image of a man scurrying through the woods, his head bobbing against the snowy backdrop. She went to grab her phone. She stopped briefly. “Shit!” she realized now what Aaron was waving, was her phone. She was so worried about her firearm; she forgot it on her dash. She didn’t have a choice; she knew this was the guy—this was Gary. No time to grab it. She had to get this fucker.
“Gary Thom, stop, or I will shoot!”
“Shit-fuck-shit-fuck,” Aaron’s hands quivered. He called 9-1-1, doing his best to explain what happened. “I need help. I’m with Officer Vanessa Velasquez, and she just chased a dude into the woods. We’re at 1981 Orr Road. Send help!”
FORTY-FIVE
“Are you feeling better?” Haylee came back to the sofa with a second bottle of water. Lydia had finished off the coffee. Haylee poured herself a drink as well, a stiff one. Seagram’s Vodka and Red Bull, mostly vodka.
“You’re drinking,” Lydia didn’t ask, nor was her words judging.
“I need it right now. My nerves are shot,” Haylee took a sip. “I really want to pop a pill and numb myself. It’s taking everything I got not to. If you weren’t here, I won’t lie, it’s probably the first thing I did.”
“I see, and yes, I am getting my strength back,” Lydia was now sitting up. “I hear your dog whining in your room? Is he okay in there?”
“Yes, he’s been locked up most of the day, with all the visitors,” said Haylee. “I’m sure he is getting restless, though.”
“Let him out. He shouldn’t be tied up. I like dogs. It won’t bother me.”
Haylee let Trayer out of her room. Hyper from being holed up, he ran straight for Lydia. His tail wagged wildly. He buried his snout into her lap, snorting and drooling all over her.
“Good boy,” Lydia smiled for the first time since she got sick. “Animals are just like humans, you know? You can read their essence, their energy. Trayer here is a very kind, compassionate, dare I say, a bit of a trouble maker?”
“Yes, that about sums him up,” Haylee let out a nervous laugh. She followed it with another drink, this time bigger, longer. “I don’t have that, though,” said Haylee.
“Have what?�
� she asked.
“That gift, to see or feel, whatever, energies from people and animals. If I did, I would have probably seen how evil Robbie was. You know, I struggled with it for so long. I have researched about people like him. People who live double lives, sort of like Dennis, I suppose. You know?’ Haylee asked. “People who live behind the mask, people who think they’re perfect, or close to it. Like, how could this sweet man do this? I read about lots of people like him: Ted Bundy, that kid from the UK, Brian Blackwell who killed his family, that bastard Chris Watts. I read up on narcissism too, and personality disorders. Then there’s me, like a magnet to these people. How do I allow two of them into my life?”
“You don’t have that ability, because we were never able to finish what we started all those years ago,” Lydia explained. “You, Jeanie, myself, we are rare people. So rare that of all the so-called ‘specialists’ in the fringe science or paranormal field, of all the cases I have dealt with over the last two decades, we are the only three I know of here in the states that are pure. Some have weaker connections. But they usually grow out of it during puberty. They don’t become stronger, like you and I. So, at this point, you have been defending yourself from it, instead of learning how to control it. This has allowed it to distort itself, to use you instead of you harnessing it. We can still fix it, but it will be a long journey.”
“I see,” Haylee took the explanation in slowly.
“It’s not your fault. You were never given the opportunity to protect yourself.”
“So, what do you see in me?”
“In you?” she asked.
“You said you could see Trayer’s essence. You sensed Gary’s. What about me? What draws these freaks, these sociopaths, to me? Is there more wrong with me than just seeing these ghosts? Hearing these voices? Am I a bad person?”
“I see darkness in you.”
“Darkness?” Haylee’s mouth dropped. She expected something depressing like loneliness or sadness. But darkness?
“You said, in the woods, you don’t remember what happened?” Lydia asked.
“I don’t remember,” Haylee answered. “I blacked out. I woke up in the hospital. Spent a week at a psych ward after.”
“You do remember. I know you do. Because I saw what happened in Aaron’s apartment, I see it inside you, now. You did so well, opening up earlier. But you haven’t been honest with yourself.”
“I’m not lying, I swear to you.”
“You think you don’t because your reality has bent to your will,” Lydia sighed, her mind raced how to explain the situation. “It’s not lying when you believe it. That’s the power of the human mind. We can shape our world; we can alter it physically even. I’m sure you’ve heard of the paradox, what came first the chicken or the egg?
Haylee shook her head, confused. “Yeah, of course.”
“What came first, humankind, or earth?”
“Is that a trick question?” asked Haylee.
“Maybe.”
“Earth, we live on earth, it had to exist before we did,” she needed another strong sip of her drink for these questions.
“What if I told you we created Earth? It only exists because we willed it to fruition?”
“I would say that makes no sense.”
“Enlightenment,” Lydia smiled. “Something we would have discussed in length if we could have kept our meetings when you were younger. There is so much to this universe we get wrong every single day. It’s always been mind over matter, even though the monetary matter is what we are led to believe is what truly matters.”
“So, you are saying humans created Earth, so we had a place to live?”
“Sort of,” Lydia frowned. “I don’t want to get too philosophical with you. But technically, the collective human-mind came first. Even before any human was ever born, before any planets shaped, before this universe even existed. Our higher-being form, a collection of us, existed as a single entity. We made everything, every atom, molecule, star, black hole.
“That just makes my head hurt even more,” Haylee finished off her drink, three long gulps down.
“Okay, forget the universe. Here, right now, our society. Strip away religion, and everything you know about where and how we came to live on earth. Because that’s about how much we as a race, know about our existence: nothing, Haylee. We know nothing. A bunch of people are trying to explain our existence with our six senses. What we don’t realize is that the blueprint was written to be understood with the seventh sense, and maybe even eighth and ninth sense too. We just can’t grasp it. It’s not our goal; by our own design, we are not meant to comprehend.”
“What does this have to do with me? With all this? The murderer, my life? Robbie, the Simmons?”
“Enlightenment, Haylee. We are enlightened; we see beyond the design. Everyone around us tries to make sense of their lives through their physical experience, with their brains, their hands, emotions. But, they can’t, not really. Don’t even get me started on religion. We created that answer from the lack of the higher senses. The things we can’t explain, our seemingly meaningless existence, our relationship with the universe, all the big questions about existence? We can’t answer, and so we replaced that inability to understand with a single concept, faith. And we personified that concept. Its name is God, Allah, Yahweh.”
“I need more alcohol…” Haylee frowned. “This is heavy stuff you’re talking about.”
“It’s wrong, all wrong,” Lydia continued, trying to keep Haylee’s attention. “Everything we see here, in this world? Think of it as a single word on a page. Next, think of these words that sum up one page of a novel. Now, think of those words on those pages that form chapters, that add up to create a novel which in turn builds into a series. A series of novels that we call ‘Life.’ All of this: me, you, the sofa, Trayer, the pain from the loss of your mother, the way a hug feels from a loved one after a bad day. The food we eat, the sweet taste of sugar, the melody of a songbird outside, the smell of fresh-brewed coffee. It’s all a part of us. It only exists because we, the collective higher-conscious, will it. We made ‘us’’, we make ‘us,’ we create ‘us,’ we kill ‘us,’ we are, together as a collection, the lifeblood of reality.”
“I just, I can’t, it doesn’t make sense.” Haylee’s head hurt. The tension was building in the back of her skull.
“We have it, Haylee. Listen to me. We are the few, the ones born with the higher senses,” Lydia’s words were fiery, passionate. “We have the ability to read it, to tap into the source. We see outside the lines. We can translate the human collective; we have access to the blueprint of life.”
Look here, Lydia ripped out a sheet of paper from one of her notebooks. She took a pen from her bag. She drew a large circle.
“Inside this circle is reality. Everything we know. The universe, God, your friend Aaron, Trayer, your old high school. Everything you know to be true or real. It exists in this circle. Following so far?”
“I guess, yeah,” Haylee replied.
“Inside that circle is where everyone lives, their conscious, their memories, their wants, needs. They use their senses to explain the world they see. We live in that circle, as well. Except we can also move our mind outside.”
Lydia drew two stick figures inside the circle, then she drew two lines extending outside of the circle and wrote the words You and Me.
“We can traverse, out here. This is the darkness, not necessarily a bad term, its only dark because everyone else can’t see into it. Their senses aren’t capable of comprehending what’s outside. We can because we can traverse outside into the dark area. They look within and outwards only. They live in the light, they can see in the circle, but will never be able to lo
ok into the abyss. We can move into the abyss; we can sit in the dark and adjust are senses in the blackness, and we can see. It’s like when you sit in a dark room for a long time, and your eyes adjust. This is us. We are out there. We can see, tap into the higher senses and into the parts the grander design we were never supposed to see.”
Haylee’s head fell into her hands. She rubbed her eyes. “Look, this is interesting, but I failed miserably at spirituality and theory in college. My head hurts, I’m emotionally wrecked right now. I think I should call my dad, I just...I don’t know what to do about my life, and I can’t grasp this…”
“You see shadows, you hear voices,” Lydia stood up, walked over to Haylee, put both her hands onto hers. She looked deep into her eyes. “Yet, what I am telling you, you push away, because it’s scary. But you can’t make sense of the voices either, can you? It’s because you have no understanding of the higher senses. It’s foreign to you. You see things you can’t explain daily. I am telling you truth.”
“My entire life has been a shit storm.,” Haylee pulled her hands away. She broke her gaze. “I don’t care what happens to me when I die. Why I am here, or what’s outside that circle. Because, anything, even nothing, is better than what’s in that damn circle. Anyway, what does this have to do with the woods?”
“Well,” Lydia frowned. “It’s going to get worse.”
“What?”
“The woods,” she explained.
“Okay?” Haylee questioned, growing slightly irritable now.
“In the woods, Haylee, I saw it. When I was attacked with the sickness, in Aaron’s apartment, it came to me. I saw you in the woods, clear as day. The creature, it was communicating with me. Your life, all this sadness, confusion, death, then the pregnancy. The miracle with the married man, Dennis. Cheating on the one person you loved. How much did that hurt? You were angry with Robbie’s cheating, angry at your own infidelity. You broke, your mind snapped Haylee. You can’t blame yourself with everything you have gone through. You were a victim your entire life. This is how the creature was able to get in, how it was able to get through the veil. It came from outside the circle, in the abyss. It knew you because you knew it because you were the connection between the two worlds. It used your mind as a vessel. Out there in the circle, that’s where our madness forms. Your darkness, the pain, and suffering of your life, first you manifested it out there. Then, unknowingly you gave it life here in the circle. You birthed it here in our world. It came from you, Haylee.” Lydia’s warm hand fell onto Haylee’s chest right above her heart.